in what ways does being transfeminized different from being transfeminine? can someone be transfeminized but not transfeminine? and can a person be transmasculinized and what would that mean?
when we talk about transfemininity and what it is, we have to understand that theres several things that we have to engage with. i like to break it down into the following categories. this isnt comprehensive but these are the functional ideas and concepts that i use to organize how i think about the different facets making up our experience and how society interacts with us.
transfeminine people - the real, actually-existing or previously existed living/breathing/eating/sleeping/shitting/dying people that exist in the world as transfeminine.
transfeminine spectres - the propaganda, the scare story, the bogeywoman, that reactionaries, fascists etc use to terrify ppl, punish gender transgression by cis ppl, punish alliances with transfems by all TME ppl (cis too), and who is used to embody the various types of violence that the transfeminine people are threatened with, such as troonjacks, caricatures, the attack helicopter copypasta, the "its maam" meme, the rapist, the predator, the Thing that's converting the impressionable girls. critically, the spectre must be portrayed as a "traitor to the male class", regardless of whether or not a transfeminine person actually feels "like a man or boy"
transfeminine labor - the specific and unique kinds of social labor that transfems are expected and called to do, as well as the existence of us as the thing that boys and men use to outgroup so that they can define themselves.
transfeminine roles - related to labor and spectre, roles are the places and positions that ppl try and slot us in. the expectation of us being sexually available, or willing to take abuse, the use of us as a means of comfort and emotional venting, labor and support and solidarity, and especially community construction. if labor is the actual doing of the necessary work, then role is the expectation of us to do it.
transfeminine positionality - the specific relationship to the means of social reproduction (the technologies of maintaining and reproducing existing social systems) that ppl who are transfeminized share. this is specifically what makes someone TMA, although one may not necessarily be "transfeminine" or a "trans woman".
transfeminine stuggle - the social and material barriers and oppressions against us and our multifarious means of resistance. our struggle to survive and liberate ourselves.
transfeminine process - the means by which we, over time and through social and personal effort, assert our autonomy to transition and self-actualize
transfeminine identity - the conscious, self-admitted and personal alignment with being transfeminine. thinking of oneself as a transfeminine person or as a trans woman, which has consequence for how we move in the world and what methods we take in our process, struggle, and labor.
in what ways does being transfeminized different from being transfeminine?
transfeminization is something more specific and unique compared to the above. it's the process of the construction of a class or subclass of ppl who are made to serve as spectre, role, positionality and labor that patriarchy has used to sustain itself. not every kind of person who performs a similar or related role to today's transfems is going to be self-identified as such, and may not be considered to be trans women or transfem. if we look in history there are people who can be found performing similar roles and labor, who have a similar positionality to transfems, but wouldnt be considered to be transfeminine today, including enslaved people of various genders, prostitutes, children, underclassed men and boys, both transfeminine and transmasculine genders, intersex people, and racialized people. this is not to say that "anyone can be transfem", but rather, that any given characteristic of transfemininity isnt specifically unique to transfemininity, and is, in fact, also shared by other Marginalized Genders (MaGes), even if it differs in Degree, Purpose, Directionality or some other aspect.
for example, transfeminine people are often "masculinized", or accused to be bigger, stronger, tougher, more aggressive, more sexual and more sexually violent. this is a shared aspect between transmisogyny, and lesbiphobia, misogynoir and racialized misogyny! it is a commonality between trans women broadly, lesbians, and racialized cis women. none of these groups has an exclusive claim to it, but how and why masculinization occurs can differ between these groups. think of what a masculinized spectre of a trans woman is portrayed like vs a masculinized spectre of a cislesbian. even though cisbians might be masculinized, they are not masculinized in the same way as a trans woman would be, thus arent TMA.
the application of transfeminization to non-transfeminine groups is hard to pinpoint because a lot of it is specifically obscurred or layered under other oppressive forces but i think its fairly safe to say that queer boys, and specifically queer racialized, indigenous and Black boys can be transfeminized, and it is possible that in certain instances they are made to be TMA
as i have said before and elsewhere, i localize the actual sex change at the point in time where gendered treatment changes from instructive to punitive. that is to say, as children are trained to be a certain gender, if they resist long enough and in certain ways, or if they closet themselves and conceal their desires for safety, they will start to be punished rather than taught.
furthermore, in the absence of transfeminine people as direct targets, social systems will start to apply the transfeminine spectre status to what other targets are available. they will be portrayed as more violent, more sexual, more cunning, and specifically as a traitor to the male class.
it is also important to note: this is not an option. to build and construct men out of boys, the patriarchy needs an outgroup to define its behaviors in contrast to. in wider societies this can be done by outgrouping women, other types of non-hegemonic or non-dominant-class men, but in smaller groups, its often someone who was forced into boyhood training, and who is then punished for not achieving the masculine ideal, when in fact, someone was always going to have to fail, or be made to fail.
this is the critical point here. we are not TMA or transfeminized by virtue of birth or mere existence, but because we are forced to be so that society can use us in its self-maintenance and self-reconstruction
can a person be transmasculinized and what would that mean?
certainly, but determining who and how and through what means would require us to have a fairly rigorous understanding of the role of transmasculinity and how that has changed quite rapidly in the past century, and what is being constructed for them.
